Author Archives: Aaron Axelsen

Desire2Learn Course Closet Cleaning Workshops

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clutter-360058_1920In preparation for the upcoming Canvas transition, we will be holding a two part hands on workshop in January 2018 to help clean up some of the old content in your D2L courses.  We will provide a brief overview of common areas that can be cleaned up, and then we’ll dive in and help you clean out the closet!

Registration is required.

Thursday, January 4th (Hyer 210):

Tuesday, January 16th (Hyer 210):

Can’t make these?  We are planning to offer additional sessions during the Spring semester.

What this workshop isn’t: We will not be talking about Canvas, or showing any of the Canvas platform during this session.  The purpose of this session is to focus on and prepare your D2L courses for the upcoming transition.  We will be releasing a Canvas training schedule in January 2018.  Stay tuned!

If you have any questions about this workshop, contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

LEARN Center/LTC Fall 2017 Student Engagement Faculty Panel

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This Fall 2017 semester, the LEARN Center and the LTC co-sponsored a series of workshops on student engagement. In the second workshop, a panel of instructors from across the UW-Whitewater campus shared strategies and techniques for engaging students across different course formats (i.e., face-to-face, online, blended/hybrid). The panelists for the session were Tammy French (Communication), Kelly Hatch (Curriculum & Instruction), Eric Loepp (Political Science), and Choton Basu (Information Technology & Supply Chain Management).

One panel question posed during the session addressed how instructors can know whether most (or all) students are engaged in a learning activity, or if only a relatively small handful of students are more vocally engaged. The instructors’ responses to the prompt are featured in the video below.

The LTC recorded all of the instructor presentations, and the other panel questions as well. The additional videos from this panel are available for viewing on the LTC YouTube site.

Information about the Spring 2018 LEARN Center/LTC workshop series will be forthcoming on this blog and on the LEARN Center website.

For further information on the LEARN Center/LTC workshop series, or any other LTC professional development opportunities, please contact the LTC at ltc@uww.edu.

[RESOLVED] Lynda.com Currently Unavailable

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Lynda.com-logoResolved 12/18 3:30pm:  Lynda.com services have been restored and are again working.  If you have issues access Lynda, please contact the UW-W Helpdesk.

Update 12/12 9:00AM:
Lynda.com for UW-Whitewater is still unavailable.  We have received word that the Lynda office is currently scheduled to re-open on December 18th.  Currently, that is the earliest estimate that we have for when access will be restored.

Update 12/11 8:00AM:
Due to the Thomas Fire evacuations in California, Lynda Engineering and Tier 2 support are severely limited.  They are currently working on bringing support back online as soon as possible.

Update 12/6 1:45PM:
Lynda.com remains unavailable.  Technicians are working to resolve the issue, but Lynda.com support is currently limited.  We have received the message below from the vendor:

Due to the devastating fires in California, which are nearby, our Lynda.com headquarters is closed. Some of our colleagues have had to also evacuate their homes, since yesterday. As a result, this is affecting key Support Services, like Tech Support and Customer Service. Teammates who did not have to evacuate are working remotely, so we have some support, but limited.

Original message:
Beginning on 12/1, UW-Whitewater users are currently unable to access and login to the Lynda.com portal.  Lynda.com support is working on resolving the issue.  As soon as we have additional information we’ll update it here.

If you have any questions or concerns about this outage, please contact the UW-W Helpdesk.

LTC Institutes for Online/Blended Teaching

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The Learning Technology Center (LTC) hosts Winter and Summer Institutes for Online/Blended Teaching. These institutes serve as introductions to best practices in online and blended course design and facilitation. Though these institutes do address specific tools, inside and outside of the learning management system (LMS), the focus of the institute is on research and practices in online teaching and learning, rather than on learning to use specific tools. By completing the institute, instructors can receive a badge.

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In the past, basic knowledge of using the tools in the LMS has been viewed as a prerequisite for enrolling in the institutes. Though this might change slightly during the transition to Canvas (Please see the Canvas Migration Portal here for more information on that transition: http://www.uww.edu/icit/ltc/canvas-portal), in general some previous knowledge and experience using online teaching tools, such as tools in a LMS, is viewed as necessary in order to successfully complete the institute.

Participation in these institutes is competitive, as more instructors typically apply than can be supported in a given offering. However, by offering the institute twice a year, the LTC tries to accommodate as many instructors teaching online and/or blended in this institute as possible.

If you are interested in applying for the institute, be on the lookout for calls for participants on this blog in the future. If you are in need of one-on-one help with your online or blended course to close out the current Fall 2017 semester, consider registering for the LTC’s Saturday Instructional Development Event in December.

Canvas Course Design Feedback – November 28th

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PrintAs part of the Canvas migration project, there has been a UW-System team working on developing different course template options.  This team will be visiting UW-Whitewater on Tuesday, November 28th between 1pm and 5pm.  During this time, the team will be giving you a chance to have some hands on interaction with the course templates and will be seeking your feedback.  This feedback will be used to guide the development of the final versions that will be implemented for courses inside of the Canvas platform.  Laptops will be provided in these sessions.  Please bring along any mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc) that you would also like to use for testing.

We are seeking feedback from ALL audiences that plan to interface with Canvas on campus.  Please register for one of the appropriate sessions below!

Teacher (Instructor) Audience – sessions held in McGraw 19a:

Learner (Student) Audience – sessions held in McGraw 19c:

If you have any questions please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Innovating with Instructors

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In my first blog post, I shared the LTC’s mission with you, and in my last blog post I talked about how the LTC supports instructors through cutting edge programming with partners (like the LEARN Center). Today, I want to talk about the next hexagon–how we innovate. LTC-mission-statement-v5

According to our mission, “we innovate with instructors by initiative emerging technology exploration projects that investigate learning technology trends in higher education and how they may be used here at UWW.” Every year instructors receive a survey from the LTC asking about satisfaction with our services, and challenges they may be having in the classroom. We analyze this data to understand the key challenges instructors are having and merge that with other data from the literature (e.g., key new pieces of research, the ELI Key Issues for Teaching and Learning, the NMC Horizon Report, etc.). Together, these data points drive the tool we investigate. From there, the LTC recruits instructors who would like to use the tool in their classes through an open call and then works with them to learn the tool, implement it into their course, and evaluate its ability to solve the pedagogical challenge that it was selected to solve.

From our last instructor support survey we knew that instructors were concerned with student engagement. This semester (Fall 2017), as part of an emerging technology exploration project, we have ten instructors who are busy at work using Cisco Spark in their classes to engage students in different ways. Cisco Spark is a two-part system that features an interactive board and virtual space to increase student engagement through collaboration, communication, and interaction inside and outside of class.

sparkboardThe Interactive Spark Board simplifies collaboration, sharing, and bringing in guest speakers by combining three common teaching tools in one:

  • Wireless Presentation that enables instructors and students to share content and collaborative work.
  • Electronic Whiteboard that allows instructors and students to illustrate course concepts and return to them later for review, editing, and further conversation.
  • Web Conferencing that creates a 4K video calling experience with intelligent tracking. Perfect for bringing in guest speakers!

Interaction does not stop with the Interactive Spark Board. Instructors and students can leverage the virtual Spark Space to interact and continue class activities. Access to the Spark Space can be gained from mobile devices (such as tablets), laptop or desktop computers, and through web browsers. Instructors can create a class space for course questions and further divide their  space for specific discussion, group project work, or activities started on the Spark Board.

 

Look for findings related to this project in Spring 2018! If you have any questions, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Non-Timetable D2L Course Cleanup Process

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clutter-360058_1920In preparation for the upcoming Canvas migration, we will be reviewing all ONGOING/OTHER semester courses that exist in Desire2Learn.  This is an OPT-IN purge, and we will not be automatically removing any courses.  Impacted users will receive an email on Monday, October 30th.  Please review the message and let us know by Friday, November 10th if we can remove any of the courses listed.

The D2L Course Cleanup resources site is available with more information on the Cleanup process and instructions on how to export course materials and student data.

If you have any questions or concerns about the D2L Course Cleanup process or need assistance, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Fall 2017 Student Engagement Series: Technologies and Techniques Workshop

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This Fall semester, the UW-Whitewater LEARN Center and the Learning Technology Center (LTC) have been co-sponsoring a series of workshops on student engagement.

Chalkboard and cell phone

 

The first in the series of workshops provided an overview of challenges and approaches to student engagement. The second in the series of workshops featured a faculty panel discussing different approaches to student engagement. The third, and final, session will provide information on a few different instructional technologies that can be used as a means to help facilitate student engagement. Participants in the third, and final, workshop will also have the opportunity to test out these tools/technologies.

The last session of the Fall 2017 student engagement workshops series is Monday, November 6th. The session runs from Noon to 1:30 pm, and begins in UC 259B. Lunch is provided.

Please sign-up for the final workshop before Monday, October 30th by visiting the UW-Whitewater Event Signup Tool (you will need log in with your Net-ID and password), and look for the LEARN Center section.

UW Office of Professional & Instructional Development – Spring 2018 Conference on Teaching & Learning

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The 2018 Spring Conference on Teaching & Learning presented by the UW System Office of Professional & Instructional Development (OPID) is taking place Thursday, April 12 and Friday, April 13, 2018 in the Memorial Union at UW-Madison.

uws-logo-white

The theme for the conference is The Joy of Teaching in an Age of Digital Learning. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Dr. Michael Wesch, Ph.D, who is a Cultural Anthropologist at Kansas State University, and a winner of the Carnegie Foundation’s U. S. Professor of the Year Award.

Faculty and instructional staff from all fields are welcome, and encouraged, to submit proposals for the conference. The deadline for submitting proposals is Monday, November 27, 2017. Those with accepted proposals will be informed by December 20, 2017. Proposals are submitted online at this website.

For more information, please visit the website for the 2018 OPID Spring Conference on Teaching & Learning.

Instructure Canvas contract signed by UW-System Board of Regents

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PrintUW-Whitewater has received word that the UW System Board of Regents has signed the contract with Instructure for their Canvas product.

Now that the contract is signed, here is what you need to know:

  • The Director of Learning Technology is serving as the UW-Whitewater Institution Project Manager.  Please continue to use the Learning Technology Center (ltc@uww.edu) as your primary contact for questions and concerns.  Each UW-System Institution has a dedicated project team and will be working together on migration efforts.  Provost Elrod and Assistant Vice Chancellor Pokot (ICIT) are the UW-Whitewater project sponsors.
  • The earliest opportunity to migrate courses to Canvas is expected to be Fall 2018 with all courses migrated before December 2019.  The move from D2L to Canvas is an exciting change, but will not happen overnight.  These estimates are not set in stone, and they may change as things progress.
  • Please do not contact UW-Madison colleagues or Canvas to gain access to a test course. Though we can understand that you might be excited to get started working in Canvas right away, please do not contact our colleagues at UW-Madison in an effort to gain access to their Canvas environment or use the free public version of Canvas to get started. Both of these environments may be quite different than the environment the UW System will be creating with Canvas and will not be included in migration planning.
  • Any inquiries from the media regarding the Instructure Canvas contract should be directed to: https://www.wisconsin.edu/dle/

We will continue to receive more information in the weeks and months ahead, and will do our best to communicate this information with the UW-Whitewater campus community as transparently as possible throughout this transition process. As we understand that there will be a lot of questions during this transition period, the Learning Technology Center has created a website to help keep the UW-Whitewater campus community informed, which can be accessed at this link: http://go.uww.edu/canvas-migration

We understand that whenever a large-scale change like this occurs, there will be a number of questions and concerns that arise. The Learning Technology Center aims to be as transparent as possible during this transition period, and will undertake concerted efforts to keep the UW-Whitewater campus community as informed as possible throughout the change. Please continue to contact the Learning Technology Center (ltc@uww.edu) for questions and concerns related to this transition.